


switched off light, 閉じた光.

by artxmisa



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:27:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29927211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artxmisa/pseuds/artxmisa
Summary: i was always thinking of you;looking at the stars, they're really beautifulあなたをずっと想いました星がきれいに見えたんだthen i rememberedto breathe in for the 6 billionth timeそしたら僕は思い出した60億回目の息をしたin order to affirm "life",i stopped breathing for a littlethe oxygen desired me,and somehow i felt really happy生きてること」確かめたくて呼吸を少し 止めてみた酸素は僕を望んでいたなんとなくすごく嬉しかった
Relationships: Jean Kirstein/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! first of all, thanks for giving my story a chance and deciding to read my work! just you being here makes me extremely happy :)
> 
> i decided to write an aot fanfic to cope with the sadness isayama has left us with lol. this fanfic is a zombie apocalypse au, so the story will not take place in the aot universe. however, all the characters except the protagonist, who is an original female character, are part of the attack on titan series and therefore belong to hajime isayama. the plot (for example, character deaths) will develop as during the series. thus beware of season 4 spoilers (not manga spoilers though. this is a safe place for anime onlys :D).
> 
> this story is also published on wattpad under the same title and can be found in @artxmisa, in case you are more comfortable reading on there. i apologize in advance for any possible mistake since english is not my first language. thanks a lot, once more, for reading my story. i hope you all like it! <3

* * *

**one ;** _閉じた光._

"annie?" i exclaimed, dashing across the streets. i no longer even cared that a zombie might show up or that my screams would attract a group of them. all i cared about was my friend, annie. she had been missing for eight days and still hadn't been found. she couldn't be dead. not annie.

"kass!" i heard someone shout my name right after listening to the sound of the car engine. i didn't have to turn around to know it was pieck, but i still did. she was sitting in the driver's seat of the little black car we used when we left the shelter. we had made it suitable for the situation, protecting it with metal bars we had found so that we could confront the zombies more effectively. "get in!" she exclaimed. she had rolled down the passenger seat's window so that i could hear her, whilst waiting for me to open the door and get in. but we couldn't leave. i wouldn't leave.

i shook my head. "we still haven't found annie"

"get in kassia!" she hastily said. her whole expression had both worry and fear in it. especially fear, which scared me. pieck had countless times gone outside the shelter, even alone on occasions. she had lost her fear towards zombies a long time ago and always kept her composure. what was making her feel in such a way? "we are in danger!"

i looked around me, trying to look for that danger pieck was warning me of. i mentally remembered the weapons i had with me. two knives hidden in my leggings and a metal bar i had picked up from the ground a few meters earlier in my right hand. i gripped it tightly, waiting for any zombies to come out from between the streets, but nothing. everything was horrifyingly silent.

the sound of the horn blared in my ears. i turned around, witnessing pieck trying to get her attention. i was about to yell at her for doing that. the zombies would appear at any moment after such a bang, but she hadn't seemed to mind.

it was at that very moment, as i was turning towards the car, that i realized it all. i heard a sound and everything happened very fast from that instant on. i saw a flare spreading in the air and, then, the windows of the building across the street opened, while two people appeared with rifles in their hands, pointing at us.

"get in now!!!" pieck exclaimed. this time i didn't think twice. i reached out and opened the passenger seat door just as the shooting started, throwing the metal bar in my hand to the ground. the instant i sat down, pieck started the car as fast as he could and began to move, before i could close the door. the shots were crashing against the other side of the car, on the driver's side. pieck bent down to avoid the shots, even if we were protected by the metal bars, and hit the gas pedal hard, running away from there. i shut the door quickly and turned to look back.

a car had emerged from one of the streets and had started following us, still from a considerate distance, but it wouldn't take long for it to catch up.

"what's going on?!" i looked at pieck, who had her eyes fixed on the road, trying not to collide with the cars that had been abandoned in the middle of it the day it all began. she didn't answer. either she didn't know or she didn't want to.

she reached back, grabbing a gun she had left on the back seats. "take this" she handed it over and i grabbed it. she checked the rearview mirror and gritted her teeth.

i checked if the gun was loaded and turned around again. the car was already pretty close to us.

"where are zeke and the others?" i asked pieck.

"i don't know" she answered.

"why are humans willing to kill us?! did zeke do anything?"

"i don't know" she repeated. "for now, focus on surviving"

i sighed. since when did we turn into that? didn't we have to help other humans to survive the situation we had to live? fighting zombies was already too much of a threat to have to add yet another one.

i looked in the rearview mirror. the co-driver in the car behind me had stuck his head out the window and was pointing his gun at our car. i looked at pieck again and, from the look in her eyes, i knew what she was expecting from me.

i sighed again. if that was what she wanted me to do, then i would have to go ahead. live or kill. that was what zeke used to tell us before leaving the shelter. i guess he wasn't wrong whatsoever. i didn't even know why those boys were chasing us or why they wanted to kill us. pieck didn't seem to know either. but they didn't seem to want to sit us on the side of the road and talk it over a few glasses of wine, so i had to do it.

"cover yourself" i told her. she nodded. "and beware of the zombies" i warned her, pointing at a group of them walking down the highway heading to us. she nodded again. she was the best driver in the shelter even without a driver's license before it all started.

i moved to the back seats being careful not to be exposed to gunfire from the car behind us. the clash of bullets against the metal of our car could be heard every few seconds. pieck was still keeping up the speed of the car, but i guessed it would fail at some point. besides, the horde of zombies in front of us concerned me, but if i didn't take over the enemy's car, we wouldn't be able to survive.

i wondered where zeke, reiner and bertholdt were. they had split off from us to look for supplies but i hadn't seen them again. we, however, had gone in search of annie. the last time we had seen her was when she had left the shelter ten days earlier with reiner, marcel and bertholdt to look for food. only bertholdt and reiner came back. marcel had been eaten by zombies, which had left the whole group, especially porco, devastated, and annie had disappeared from our sight. bertholdt and reiner spent two days looking for her before returning to the shelter, but they didn't succeed.

she was my best friend in the shelter and i refused to leave her out there alone, because i knew she wasn't dead. she couldn't be. the anguish gnawed at me at night, because i knew she was out there somewhere, maybe trapped or maybe hiding, unable to get out, while she waited for our help. i couldn't leave her to her fate.

however, eight days later there was still no sign of her. pieck, reiner, zeke, bertholdt and i had moved quite far away from our town, thinking that maybe she had fled there. nevertheless, we hadn't found her anywhere. instead, we had encountered a group of humans who probably thought we were plundering their territory, stealing their food.

"open the trunk" i ordered pieck. she nodded and pressed the button to do so. i hid in the corner of the back seat and turned around to lean the gun against the back of the seats. i closed one of my eyes to look through the sight of the gun so i could take better aim. i didn't want to kill humans. i didn't want to, and never would, ever.

that was why i aimed at the tires of their car. i had always been told i had a good aim. in fact, i used to be assigned to sniper duty with colt. while the others were fighting on the ground, we were shooting from above. so it didn't take me long to hit the target. even before they were aware of what was happening. however, even though the bullet hit the tire, nothing happened. i was stunned but didn't hesitate to shoot again.

the boy who was in the passenger seat, though, had already reacted and fired again, this time aiming inside the car but hopefully missing. "pieck!" i exclaimed. she was too focused on dodging the horde of zombies in front of us. "pieck, close the trunk!" she didn't hear me. "shit" i whispered.

all that was left for me to do was keep shooting.

but first, i glanced at them. two guys in the front seats. in the passenger seat with the rifle, a guy with gray shaved hair who had gone back inside the car to reload the rifle. in the driver's seat, a guy with long light hair and a short beard on his chin. his expression didn't show any feeling, but i could tell he didn't understand the situation either. maybe he was just following orders, doing what had to be done.

i wanted to tell them 'i don't want to do this', 'let's stop now'. i really wanted to tell them. and even though they wouldn't hear me if i shouted it, i tried to convey it with my gaze. fortunately, the eyes of the boy driving met mine for a few seconds and that tense face he had kept softened for a few thousandths of a second. i dropped the gun and rested it on the seat. it was my signal to say that i didn't want to do that, that i wanted them to stop, that i had no idea what was going on and that i didn't want to kill each other. the boy seemed to understand, or at least i hoped he did. but that was when the boy in the passenger seat stuck his head and the gun out the window again and pointed it at me.

at that stage i even thought it was all over. but pieck shouted. "kassia, hold on tight!"

i was about to turn around to figure out why when i saw the driver of the car behind me reach out and grab his partner, preventing him from shooting. he turned his head to look at him, annoyed, but the guy driving was glaring at me.  
beforei knew it, a sudden movement of our car sent me crashing into one of the windows. pieck had made a sharp turn, completely changing our direction, and i had forgotten to grab on as she had instructed me to. my head hurt horrendously, but i looked forward to see how she had avoided the horde of zombies. the two boys' car, having no time to react, was heading straight to them.

"no!" i shouted, getting up from the seat and returning to the front one, grabbing the gun. everything seemed to spin and my vision was darkening and blurring, but i managed to roll down the window. "hey!!! here!!!!" i yelled, banging on the window bars to get the zombies' attention.

"what are you doing, kassia?!" pieck yelled, grabbing my arm and pulling me back.

"i saw him! i saw him backing down and stopping his friend from shooting me! they were going to let us...!"

"you're being delusional" she said, letting go of my arm and closing the trunk to fix her eyes on the road again, driving us away from there. the boys' car was about to crash into the zombies. "we have to get away from here as soon as possible"

"but..." i didn't want to leave them behind. he had shown humanity, he wasn't going to kill us. and now we were going to let them die. it was impossible for them to survive that.

but the zombies started to fall progressively. gunshots and more gunshots could be heard. pieck stepped on the accelerator, urgently driving away. i turned around in the seat to look at the situation. more people had appeared, a large group, and they were shooting at the zombies that were accumulating around the car of the two guys.

they were saving them.

"we have to find annie" i whispered to pieck, still watching those people kill the zombies with agility, us moving farther and farther away.

"our priority is to run away" pieck replied. she grabbed the gear knob before stepping on the gas like there was no tomorrow. "i thought you already knew that"


	2. two.

* * *

**two ;** _symphonicsuite part 2-5th: apple seed._

kass" i heard a whisper and opened my eyes. my body was so heavy i couldn't stand up straight. i realized i was lying down with my back resting on what felt like a mattress. it was cold. my feet felt bare, but i was wearing pants and a baggy sweatshirt because i didn't feel my body cold and felt the fabric on my skin. but, even though my eyes were open, i couldn't see anything. "kass, look at me" colt spoke to me in whispers, but i couldn't find him. "hey" he whispered softly, putting his hand on my cheek. i wasn't able to see his hand, but i felt his touch on my skin.

i progressively began to see a white light, blinding me completely. and, little by little, i began to make out my surroundings. a few pieces of furniture, walls... the spot of light in front of my eyes... colt with the laser in his hands, pointing it at my eyes. i was in the infirmary we had improvised in the shelter. colt was in front of me, with his hand on my cheek and staring at me, quite close to me. if it hadn't been for the headache i was having, i would have made a joke, but at that moment i just felt like disappearing.

i didn't understand why i was there. what was the last thing i had done? reading a book to falco? or debating about the possible cause of the apocalypse with udo? porco had been teaching me how to fight but i couldn't remember exactly when it had been. my memories were jumbled. i remembered walking under the stars with colt, but when had that been? i remembered seeing my sister's, pieck's, worried face, but very blurry.

i suddenly recalled everything. my memories were sorted out in a matter of thousandths of a second.

"where's pieck?" i asked colt.

"she just left five minutes ago. she's been here with you the whole time" colt replied, turning off the light and leaving it on the nightstand next to the bed i was sitting on. he took his hand off my cheek to rummage through the drawer for something. "i'm glad you woke up. i was really worried" i heard as he searched through the stuff inside.

however, i mustered all the strength i had left and tried to get out of bed, resting my arm on the mattress. but i had too much hope in me, because a sharp pain shot through my head, blurring my vision for a few seconds.

"hey, hey, hey, what do you think you are doing?" colt hastened to lay me down on the bed gently, stopping his search of whatever he was looking for.

"i need to find zeke" i whispered. i wanted answers.

"you can't leave now, kass" colt replied. "you've been unconscious for sixteen hours and you think you can just get up like that?"

"sixteen hours... what?"

"you got hit hard when you were running away from paradis" he answered me, turning around and getting up from the chair. "pieck feels very guilty because you were under her responsibility" pieck? i remembered that i hadn't listened to her and that was why i had ended up like that. that was the last thing i recalled. i didn't even know how we had managed to flee the city. "i should go tell her that you woke up" colt added, approaching the door, which was closed.

"wait, colt" i called out to him, making him stop. he looked at me, expectantly, with his hand on the door handle, about to open it. "tell me what happened"

"it will be better if they tell you" colt replied, opening the door and walking out.

i rested my head on the pillow and sighed, looking at the ceiling. i put my hand to my head, touching the bandage around my forehead. i had suffered a hemorrhage? i tried to touch my head but felt no wound. i wanted to remember what happened after i ran away from the chase of the two boys, but i guessed i had been knocked unconscious from that point on.

i doubted they had found annie, but i wished with all my might they did afterwards.

i made an effort to get out of bed, using the support of my two arms on the mattress, and sat up in bed. the stabbing pain arose in my head again, but it was not as extreme as the first time. i looked myself up and down. i was wearing a baggy, as i had suspected, beige sweatshirt that i assumed was colt's, because i had seen it on him before. i was also wearing black sweatpants that i didn't know whose they were, but they did not belong in my closet.

i rested my feet on the cold wooden floor and took a breath before trying to get up. i was surprised to see that my legs were holding my weight and that the pain in my head wasn't getting any sharper. even though colt had told me not to get up, he knew much better than anyone that i couldn't lay still and, even though i had woken up from being unconscious, i wasn't going to stay lying there waiting for the others to come.

i walked around the room until i reached the door and went out. the house was quiet. it was the main building of the shelter, where we spent most of our time. on the second floor there was the infirmary, an office that zeke had set aside to keep track of supplies and do leader stuff, and a room with two beds in case someone was badly injured and needed to be close to the infirmary.

downstairs, though, there was a large living room with a huge table where we met to plan our sorties, exchanges with other shelters or discuss important matters. the rest of the rooms were used for storing supplies, weapons and the monitoring of electricity and water.

when i stepped out into the hallway on the second floor, the wood echoed under my feet. it was nighttime. no light was coming through the window and the house was dark, although it couldn't be long until it was daylight. i approached the stairs at the end of the hallway and heard voices downstairs as well as saw the light coming out of the hall.

i couldn't make out their voices, so i decided to go downstairs, being careful not to fall down the stairs. as i got closer to the first floor, the voices became clearer and i began to distinguish reiner, zeke and porco arguing.

"you should have told us!" porco exclaimed, in an angry tone.

"and what would you have done?!" zeke replied. "break into their shelter and kill them all?" he added. "you know they have us under control" i heard porco grit his teeth and walked over to the door of the hall.

the three men were standing around the table. zeke was looking out the window of the hall. i could see the tiredness in his eyes and the bags under his eyes. porco and reiner were looking at each other. i could also feel the tension between the two of them.

"what are you talking about?" i asked, frowning. as soon as they heard me, all three turned their heads to look at me. zeke's eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't answer. porco and reiner looked away quickly.

"you're awake" zeke whispered, probably feeling relieved.

"who has us under control?" i asked.

"no one" porco replied, looking up and approaching me. "why are you up? you should be resting" he added, resting his hand on my shoulder. "let's go upstairs" porco suggested, starting to walk out of the hall, waiting for me to follow. i stood static on the spot.

"annie...?" i whispered, not too loud but just enough to be heard.

"not yet" reiner replied, resting his hands on the table. "not yet" he repeated in a whisper.

i knew it and i had no hope, but i wanted to hear it from his mouth.

porco approached me again and, seeing that i had no intention of going upstairs, dragged one of the chairs from under the table and gently grabbed my arm so that i would sit down. this time i listened to him because my head was still hurting and i didn't want it to get any worse.

i looked around us. zeke, reiner and porco were there. colt had gone to look for pieck. and bertholdt? why wasn't he with reiner? the atmosphere was very tense, but i didn't want to ask anything. i was waiting for them to tell me everything. i noticed that porco came back to me and put his hand on my shoulder again. i looked up to look at him. i could see the concern on his face.

"i will get you a glass of water. don't move" he said and then walked out of the hall, leaving me, zeke and reiner alone.

porco had always acted like a big brother to me, even though we were only about two years apart in age. ever since we found ourselves on the streets of marley, pieck and i exhausted, trying to find shelter and running away from the zombies as best we could, porco and marcel had treated us like family. i had always noticed a special relationship between my sister and porco, and maybe for that reason porco had treated me like his other sister. we had known each other for three years and our relationship had always been on good terms. however, eight days earlier, when we found out that marcel had died, porco started to behave much more protectively. he treated me as if i was going to leave him at any moment too, so he started to take special care of me.

porco blamed reiner for his brother's death because reiner had been chosen as the leader in that mission, which made him responsible. therefore, the relationship between those two became very tense and it seemed that, at any moment, the thread that kept them from killing each other would break.

on the other hand, i didn't hold anyone responsible for annie's disappearance. besides bertholdt and i, annie wasn't very close to anyone else. he and i were the ones who suffered the most when we found out she was missing, but we didn't blame anyone for it. we just wanted to find her as soon as possible and prayed that she was safe somewhere.

i looked around the hall. reiner was still leaning on the table, staring at the floor. zeke looked like he wanted to talk, but he wouldn't take the step. so i did.

"tell me what happened" i said. "i don't remember anything since my head got hit in the car" both zeke and reiner looked at me, seriously. neither of them were ready to remember what had happened during that mission and i could tell by the look in their eyes. they were begging for forgetting everything. "did..." my voice cracked, aware of what supposed the question i was about to make. "did we lose someone?" my voice conveyed hope, but as soon as i saw reiner, i knew the answer was yes. and i didn't need one to know who it was. "bertholdt..." i whispered, looking away to my hands resting on my knees. they were full of wounds. i assumed colt or pieck had cleaned them, because i recalled them dirty during the mission to find annie.

even if he was not a really close friend, his death hurt me. i recalled spending hours with him, lying in the garden of the shelter, an awkward silence reigning between us, as we waited for annie, because she was the one who had brought the three of us together. we had never shared a conversation of more than four words, but her presence pleased me. even though only annie united us, a bond of a possible small friendship had grown between bertholdt and me.

"was it them? did those people kill him?" i dared to ask. i didn't want to hear a yes, but i already knew it was highly possible.

"they did" reiner answered. i could sense hatred in his voice but i didn't look up. my leg started to shake as it always happened when i started to feel lost, as if i was drowning in a sea of despair and hopelessness. my eyes were teary, but i hold those tears. it was not the moment to start crying.

"who were they?" i asked, trying to stop my right leg with my hand. i looked at zeke because i knew he could answer my question. he was our leader, he couldn't be oblivious to the situation. he opened his mouth, making a move to start explaining, but he closed it seconds later. he eyed reiner, who had already moved from his position and was looking at me.

they weren't going to give me any clues and i became aware of that the moment zeke turned around. i was about to ask them again when the door of the house opening echoed in the room. i turned around in the seat, only to see pieck rushing upstairs, but then realizing i was in the hall. she went down, as fast as she had climbed a few steps, and run to me, squatting down in front of me. she cupped my face with her hands and looked thoroughly at my face, trying to see if i was feeling okay.

"kass" she whispered. "are you fine? why did you leave the room? you should be in bed" she added, her hands leaving my face and putting them on my knees, over mine.

"that's what i told her" porco suddenly appeared, handing me over the glass of water he had picked. i grabbed it and took a sip. pieck stood up next to porco and turned around to see reiner and zeke, too quiet and serious.

"let's go upstairs" pieck said, looking at me again. porco took the glass off my hands as soon as i finished drinking and left it on the table.

"no" i said. "i need answers"

"you're too tired for this, kassia" pieck added. her tone was starting to sound too protective and bossy, which angered me.

"i'm completely fine!" i loudly said. "you should stop babying me so much... i am okay" i lowered my tone, not wanting to start a fall out. i just wanted to let them know i didn't need that much attention and care. "i want to know what happened and why" i whispered and pieck sighed. she looked at zeke and reiner, but they weren't cooperating.

"we are all tired. we have been up all night" porco said. "we haven't talked this out yet because we were waiting for you to wake up" he added seconds later. "let's go rest now" he dearly looked at me, which convinced me. i noticed the bags under everyone's eyes, how their gaze was lost and conveyed tiredness, and i knew he was right.

i nodded. pieck sighed in relief, looked at porco and smiled at him in gratitude. then, she turned her gaze at me and offered me her hand. "let's go, kass"


	3. three.

* * *

**three ;** _without you._

the wind was blowing. my loose brown hair was swaying in the wind, blocking my view. i threw my head back and tucked my locks behind my ear. there wasn't a cloud in the blue sky, the sun was high in the sky. it wasn't hot, though. it wasn't cold either. i was wearing a white sweatshirt and long black sweatpants, with sneakers that were too old from wearing them over and over, but it wasn't as if we had plenty to spare.

i was sitting down in one of the fields at the back of the shelter, behind a row of residents' houses. the shelter was surrounded by high walls that protected us from the zombies. in the center there was the main building, where i had stayed unconscious. surrounding it, there was a small square where supplies were usually handed out or announcements were made. after that, all that was left were houses. two-story houses. there were no more than twenty, since there were not many of us. 

pieck and i lived together with our father and porco. we were lucky and three members of our family had survived, unlike others.

the total number of inhabitants in the shelter was less than ninety. we were few in number and had lost many along the way. however, we still managed to survive. mainly thanks to exchanges and pacts with other nearby shelters that made it easier for us to survive. they had even proposed that we joined them, but we had refused. besides that, we also had our own merit. we had gained experience in killing zombies, even though most of us were just kids when it all started. we used to be called the warriors in the shelter, because we were always the ones who went outside and protected the rest. 

but there were fewer and fewer of us left and i was starting to think that we wouldn't have much time left until we would be eaten by the zombies. or even killed by our own race, humans.

I looked at the fences in front of me. at the back of the shelter, quite far away from the houses, we had not built the wall because of lack of material. instead, we had put up a double fence to prevent the zombies from knocking it down, and sometimes we hung up some cloths so they wouldn't see us, shake and gather, trying to pull the fence down. however, gabi had come running towards it with a metal rod in her hand. falco was following her from a distance, and even further back, udo and zofia.

"what are you doing, gabi?" falco asked, probably tired of gabi's ideas. 

gabi grabbed the cloth covering the fence and threw it on the ground. there weren't any zombies around, but they wouldn't take long to get there. 

"killing these bastards off!" she screamed.

i watched as falco sighed and stood next to her, looking at the forest that spread out a few meters away from the fence. i didn't stop them. i didn't think anything would happen. 

udo and zofia, a few seconds later, joined them. and at that moment, a zombie appeared in our field of vision.

"hey!" gabi shouted, swinging the fence so the zombie would approach her. "here!"

"don't do that, gabi! it's dangerous" falco said, but she ignored, as usual.

"she won't listen to you" zofia scoffed. she crouched down on the side of the wall and grabbed a fallen wooden stick that was there. she then approached her friend.

they were all wearing comfortable clothes stained with dirt. they had probably been playing or racing like they always did. i liked to watch them from afar while they had a good time. at least someone was doing it inside those walls, which made me a little happy. sometimes i would even join them along with colt, who always ended up getting a couple of laughs out of me. 

and almost as if he was reading my mind, someone sat down next to me. i didn't have to turn around to know it was colt. that fresh linen smell that was always present whenever he showed up. even if sometimes he reeked of sweat and i had to force him to take a shower. i smiled at those memories. luckily, after turning to look at him, i saw that his hair was slightly damp, hinting to me that he had just taken a shower. 

"what happens?" he asked me, after seeing me smile.

"nothing" i snickered, looking at the front again. the zombie had already gotten close enough to the fence and gabi was trying to get to stick the metal rod in his head. for a moment i was worried that in their free time they were doing that, when they were just kids, but then i remembered that the situation was not ordinary anymore and that their youth was now based on that, on surviving. 

colt stared at me for a few moments. i noticed his gaze on me and for a couple of seconds, i ignored him. 

"should we stop them?" i asked and looked at him. he looked at gabi and the rest. his look showed concern for a while, but when he saw that gabi managed to kill the zombie, he calmed down. a couple more zombies were approaching the fence and zofia and gabi were getting ready again, while falco watched them from behind and udo sat on the ground, writing in his notebook. among the four children, i got along best with the latter. we used to talk about the world for hours. he was a very intelligent and curious child. luckily, i was too, and i liked having someone to quench my curiosity and desire to talk about the world around us with.

"i don't think they need us" colt answered and i agreed. each day they showed more and more maturity. gabi couldn't wait to go outside the walls and kill more zombies, but she was still young. they trained every day, trying to follow our example. and even though i always had that worry about stealing their childhood, i couldn't do anything but help them, because that was what they needed, to survive.

"you're right" i muttered and looked at the ground. i hugged my legs, resting my chin on my knees and looking at the green grass below us, with the growling of the zombies and the cheering of gabi and zofia in the distance.

it had been four days since we last went out, since i'd been knocked unconscious and, thus, since we'd last seen bertholdt. also since we'd last gone out to look for annie and since those people had last tried to kill us.

and i still had no idea why.

even though porco had assured me that we would talk about it, the next day everyone seemed to have forgotten about it, which angered me. i was the youngest in the warriors and sometimes they treated me as if i didn't have to know about the most important or disgusting matters, just because i wasn't as old as the rest of the group. 

i didn't stand still, however, and managed to get information out of zeke and pieck. it wasn't much, because they always ended the conversation by saying that they didn't know what had happened either, but i did get it.

our shelter was in marley. there were more cities to the south, but too far away, as our shelter was almost at the northern edge of marley. however, over time we had discovered more camps in marley. there were at least two, but one of them was the biggest of them all, liberio. a lot of people lived there. they had a lot of resources, skilled people for the situation. in fact, a lot of them were soldiers. zeke, reiner and pieck had traveled there quite a few times to do negotiations, even though we didn't have much to offer, but i had only been there once. the problem with liberio was that they wanted to control all of marley's refuges. so they were trying to take us there, get our supplies and force us to live in theirs. so even though we were allies, we lived in constant fear of meeting their people outside our shelter one day, because they were much more powerful and much better trained than we were.

when we started our search for annie, we started by looking near liberio. we thought it was one of their strategies to get us there and buy us off. however, they assured us that they had nothing to do with it and even got involved and helped us for three days to search in marley. we got nothing.

that was when we decided to leave marley and search in other cities. 

paradis was the closest town to our shelter. it was only about a fifteen minute drive from it. zeke had been talking about paradis and mulling over the possibility of traveling there to get supplies since before annie had disappeared. the whole marley was totally controlled by liberio and we had no other choice. i thought it was strange that zeke had made that decision and i didn't believe that we couldn't still get food in marley, but i didn't question it.

the first time reiner, bertholdt, marcel and annie traveled there was when everything happened. annie and marcel didn't come back and i started to suspect zeke's decision, as well as reiner and bertholdt, but i never said anything. something was off, though. the first time we set foot on paradis since annie's disappearance, some humans attack us and bertholdt dies. i knew it couldn't just be a supply issue.

and, although i didn't get to the heart of the matter, zeke cleared up quite a few things for me. 

liberio and paradis seemed to have a past between them. magath, one of liberio's top soldiers, had contacted zeke some time ago and had sabotaged us. for days they had been monitoring the activity in our shelter, studying our movements, investigating how we were getting running water and electricity, and they had taken control of it. they basically had us in the palm of their hands. and if we didn't do what they said, they would cut our power and water and even attack us, leaving us exposed to the zombies.

liberio hadn't pushed us to join yet because they wanted to use us for something better, for the dirty laundry they didn't dare to deal with.

when reiner, bertholdt, annie and marcel traveled to paradis for the first time, it wasn't to get resources. the four of them knew about liberio's plan because zeke had told them. pieck and porco knew about it too. colt and i were the only ones oblivious to the plan. 

they actually knew that in paradis there was a group of people trying to survive, with their own shelter, and, on liberio's orders, they were going to finish them off. they wanted to get the zombies to come into their shelter and finish them, because that was liberio's will.

when zeke told me about it, i couldn't even believe it. why had they agreed to do that? where was the humanity left? i thought annie was so much more than that.

but then i remembered that we had no choice. it was to kill or live. if they didn't do it, we would be the ones who would end up that way.

that was why, when we arrived in paradis to look for annie, those people came out to attack us. they had a strong reason to do that. 

there had been a lot of information to process and i was too tired to do it. my head hurt at times. even though the pain was slowly going away, sometimes i needed to sit down and close my eyes for a while. at that moment, with the wind blowing and moving the strands of my hair, as i remembered everything that zeke and pieck had told me, a sharp pain came into my head. i closed my eyes and took a deep breath. 

"are you okay?" colt asked me. i looked at him, opening my eyes, and nodded, a smile on my face. "it doesn't seem you are"

i looked back to the front. gabi and zofia had killed five zombies and were jumping up and down with joy. falco was trying to stop gabi who was too excited and zofia was putting the cloth back over the fence with udo's help. i wish we were that ignorant.

"it's just exhausting" i sighed. i was always completely honest with colt. apart from annie, he was my only best friend, and when i was with him i could say anything that bothered me without having to cut myself off. he always seemed to understand me. whatever it was. "so much information... it's exhaustive" i added. i had told him all about paradis and liberio the day i had found out about it and he had been just as shocked as i had been. "i thought we were only supposed to kill zombies"

he let out a little painful chuckle. "i thought so too" he said, with a wistful tone. i looked at him out of the corner of my eye. he had his hands resting on the grass and his legs stretched out, staring at the sky. "it's not fair. it's not fair to use us like this" 

i agreed with him, but complaining in those moments wouldn't solve anything. it only increased our frustration and feeling of injustice that would never be satisfied. i looked at my hands, full of wounds and bruises. that situation would never end.

"do you think annie’s being held hostage?" i asked colt. that thought had popped into my mind the previous two nights. it made the most sense.

"honestly?" he asked. i nodded. "yes" 

i sighed. hearing it from his mouth hurt a little more, because that meant he had thought about it too, and therefore it was likely to be so. 

"i want to hug her again" i sobbed. i couldn't express how much i missed her and how much it turned my stomach to know that she was there, alone. we didn't even know if she was alive, if she had survived or if she was in paradis. "it hurts so much" i whispered. 

silence fell between us. i tightened my embrace even more with my legs and hid my face in my knees again. my eyes were filling with water, but i didn't want to cry again. i kept telling myself that i had to be strong, but it wasn't easy. i wanted to go out and get it over with, to end the situation and go back to the past. to have met annie in high school and not in that situation. to watch series until the wee hours with colt in my house. to play video games with porco, being him our neighbor.

i noticed how colt moved closer to me, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer to him. his hand rested on my arm, caressing the fabric of my sweatshirt. i raised my head and looked up at him. my teary eyes met his and he gave me a heartfelt smile.

no words were needed when it came to colt.

"hey, you, lovebirds!" a voice screamed. i looked straight ahead, finding gabi staring at us in the distance. falco stood beside her, embarrassed to see his brother and me hugging each other, even though they knew we were just friends. 

colt quickly separated from me and stood up, shaking out his pants. “what do you want, gabi?!” he asked her.

“we need kassia to help us with our maths homework!” zofia screamed. 

i looked at them carefully. i had no desire to help them with whatever homework they had at the moment, but if i didn't zofia would chase me all over the shelter until i did, so i had no choice.

"only if i get cookies in return!" i exclaimed, standing up from the ground like colt. 

"deal!" zofia replied with a smile. "i've found the place where udo keeps them. i just have to steal them from him"

"huh? what?" udo turned to her in surprise. "no! my cookies? you've discovered the hidden drawer in my closet?" zofia nodded. "how?!"

udo and zofia started arguing with each other and i started laughing. they made me forget everything i had been thinking about a few minutes ago. i noticed how colt looked at me and smiled when he saw me laughing. i turned my head to look at him, still laughing. and when our gazes met i realized there was still hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! first of all, thanks again for reading! 
> 
> i wanted to apologize for these exhaustive and hard-to-read chapters, since there is hardly any dialogue and nothing exciting is taking place. i needed these to explain the situation and let you know what is happening, some background story :) i promise the action will start soon!


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